In the past few months, the USDA has once again attempted to weaken
the federal organics standards that so many Americans have worked hard
to enshrine into federal law. These changes would have allowed food
labeled as "USDA organic" to contain hormones and antibiotics
in dairy cattle, pesticides on produce and potentially contaminated fishmeal as feed for livestock. As happened with a number of other
outrageous recent USDA actions, citizens groups and the organic food
industry rallied in opposition, and were successful in reversing the
proposed changes.

The newest round of protests against such changes reminds us of the
more than 200,000 letters Americans sent to the USDA back in 1997/98
pleading with the agency to not allow toxic sludge, irradiated food, and
GMOs to be included in a list of allowable food growing practices for
the then-new federal organic food regulations. The USDA backed down then
as well, in the face of the outpouring of public opinion.

It seems we have won again. Or have we?

Could it be that handing regulatory authority over to the USDA
regarding organic foods creates a larger problem than it solves? And is
it conceivable that this problem could have been averted entirely if we
the people had thought more critically about our safe food
movement's own decision-making processes?

Let's review the history.

In the 1970s, the owners of many small local farms and food
production companies realized that they needed a new standard of food
production that would prohibit a wide variety of toxic processes from
ever coming in contact with their foods. These local free-thinking
individuals got together and drafted a set of proposed organic food
standards designed to become law at the state level. No big food
companies came out to oppose or weaken the legislation because these
companies hadn't yet envisioned the tremendous profitability of
what has since become one of the fastest growing sectors of the entire
American economy--organic food products.

Because organic certification rules were slightly different from
state to state, organic food growers and producers had to be aware of
these variations in order to be able to market their products in every
state. In states without their own standards, an organic product could
be sold as such as long as it was certified by one of the other
states' certifiers. But in spite of this difficulty, the organic
industry grew rapidly; product choice kept expanding.

If everything was humming along so smoothly, then why did more than
200,000 Americans write letters to the USDA in 1997/98 begging them to
not allow GMOs, irradiation and toxic sludge as fertilizer on organic
farms? As with so many other tragic stories we could be telling, this
one also involves we the people handing our sovereignty over to a bunch
of corporations--only this time they were organic food corporations with
names like Cascadian Farm, Santa Cruz Organics, Hain, Muir Glen, Little
Bear, and many others. And their owners had a similar goal to those of
Monsanto's owners: ever increasing sales and profits.

State-based organic food certification might have worked just fine
for an organics movement whose goals centered around public health and a
sustainable economy, and whose leadership continued to be small-scale
farmers and producers, and safe food advocates. But unfortunately, the
safe food movement's numerous and diverse farmer-led and other
organizations of the 1970s and 80s gradually ceded organic food policy
decision-making authority to a small number of much more centralized
organizations whose leaders (and/or funders) now included or were
entirely comprised of organic food corporation representatives. And
these corporate leaders had a different set of goals.

So the sad reality is that we no longer have a strong and united
movement of grassroots citizens organizations working together to create
an organic food system for this country. Instead, we primarily have a
"national consumer watchdog group" (the Organic Consumers
Association, OCA) which defines its constituents as mere consumers who
yearn only for safe foods to vote for with their dollars, and a business
organization (the Organic Trade Association, OTA) whose members include
"growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmer associations,
brokers, manufacturers, consultants, distributors and
retailers"--in the US, Canada, and Mexico--working primarily to
protect and expand its profitability in the global marketplace. And for
this, we do need federal organic standards.

Notice, by the way, the lack of attention to the concerns of farm
workers by either organization. They are invisible, though there are
hundreds of thousands of them.

To fully realize the danger of our current situation, you merely
have to view a list of the giant agribusiness corporations that are
clamoring to get in on the organic foods market action, which at the
current growth rate will constitute 10% of American agriculture by the
year 2010. These huge companies now own most of the organic
industry's leading brands.

And who (or what) leads the Organic Trade Association, which
continues to play a leading role in the development of organic food
legislation and policy-making? The board of directors includes employees
of Whole Foods Market, Weetabix Canada, Stonyfield Farm, and Horizon
companies. And the primary funding for the OTA's public policy and
media advocacy work comes from Hain Celestial Group (i.e. Heinz Corp),
Horizon Organic (i.e. Dean Corp), Cascadia Farm (i.e. General Mills
Corp), Stonyfield Farm (i.e. Danone Corp), Tyson Foods, and many others.

Is the corporate leadership and funding of the OTA having an impact
on its ability to maintain organizational integrity? You bet! At its
annual convention in Texas, it hosted a panel discussion about whether
organic and biotech agriculture can co-exist. Perhaps a better use of
member time would have been a panel on the need for a ban on genetically
modified organisms in the food supply, and how to achieve it. The fact
that General Mills Corporation is a major donor may have had something
to do with this. And last July, the OTA's Personal Care Task Force
decided not to reappoint member company Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps,
the largest seller of natural soap in the US According to several
members, the company was being removed for speaking out against watering
down standards for body care products.

If we the people had never allowed our organic food corporations to
take control of our safe food movement's policy-making processes
(via such groups as the OTA and the National Organic Standards Board),
would we have lobbied to replace state-based certification with federal
USDA certification? And if we had not turned this decision-making
authority over to our corporations, would more than 200,000 concerned
citizens have had to write letters to the USDA?

Would we now be in the unenviable situation where we are
continually on the defensive against the USDA's ongoing attempts to
drive a tank through our new federal organics standards? Can social
movement processes survive when corporations (including ally
corporations) are given a political voice? Did it not occur to the safe
food movement's leadership that our corporations might one day end
up being owned by much larger agribusiness corporations that still
wanted a seat at our policy-making tables?

What is it going to take for the organic foods "movement"
in this country (what's left of it) to recognize the threat posed
by turning its decision-making authority over to organic foods
corporations which are themselves owned by much larger corporations?

The situation in other countries is less serious, since their safe
food advocacy groups are still led by citizens, not corporations. For
example, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) represents 570 member organizations in more than 100 countries.
Its mission is "Leading, uniting and assisting the organic movement
in its full diversity." IFOAM is "a democratic federation with
all fundamental decisions taken at its general assemblies, where its
World Board is also elected." It encourages farm workers to play an
active role, which you'll never hear from the OTA or OCA.

The US does still have hundreds of grassroots citizen groups
working on safe food issues. They are networked together through the
National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA) which "is
dedicated to educating the public on the importance of a sustainable
food and agriculture system that is economically viable, environmentally
sound, socially just, and humane." Constituencies represented
include "family farms, rural and urban communities, environmental
and wildlife advocates, faith-based institutions, minority farmers,
farmworker and social justice groups, community food security activists,
and advocates for the humane treatment of animals."

Notice that this is not a consumer alliance. These hundreds of
member organizations are made up of people who define themselves as
citizens using democratic processes to further their goals.

Perhaps the time has come for organic food advocates to admit that
a huge strategic mistake has been made due to the fact that we have
wandered so far from our literal roots. And that the best solution to
this growing crisis is for thousands of us to stand together as citizens
(rather than isolated as consumers) and insist that our organic food
promoting organizations' leaders work with us to regain control of
our movement from corporations of all kinds from this day forward by:

* Acknowledging our enormous mistake.

* Empowering only flesh-and-blood persons--not corporate
persons--to participate in our movement's own policy decision
making groups. (Let's show the nation how democratic decision
making should be done by disempowering the supposed "right" to
free-speech that corporate personhood has established under law, and
which has so effectively devastated we the people's ability to take
charge.)

* Withdrawing our support for USDA-defined and regulated organics
standards, and returning to the old state standards. (If it ain't
broke, don't fix it!)

* Insisting that the US pull out of all global trade treaties and
processes which are not entirely transparent and democratic in their
decision making structures.

* Working diligently to see ourselves again primarily as citizens
who all have an inherent right to a safe food supply, rather than as
mere consumers who vote with our dollars. (Imagine organic food
advocates beginning to question the acceptability of a two-tier food
supply in this country, where those of us who can afford to do so buy
organic, and the rest of us eat irradiated and genetically modified food
dosed with toxic chemicals. Imagine hundreds of grassroots groups
working together to end this travesty.)

We have reached a critical moment in our nation's history. Are
we up to the task?

Note:

Paul Cienfuegos co-founded Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
in 1996 <www.DUHC.org>, and currently chairs the City of Arcata
Committee on Democracy and Corporations. He first chimed in on this
topic in 1997 with his published essay, "The USDA Organics
Standards as a Symptom of Corporate Rule." Paul also owns an
unusual online bookstore: <www.100fires.com>. This essay will
appear in an upcoming book on dismantling corporate rule, which he is
co-authoring with Betsy Barnum, fellow of the Center for Prosperity
<www.prosperitycenter.org> in Minnesota. More info:
<cienfuegos@igc.org>.

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